Question

I have a ListBox, that’s bound to an ObservableCollection.

Each ListBoxItem is displayed with a DataTemplate. I have a button in my DataTemplate, that when clicked, needs a reference to the member of the ObservableCollection it’s part of the DataTemplate for. I can’t use the ListBox.SelectedItem property because the item does not become selected when clicking the button.

So either: I need to figure out how to properly set ListBox.SelectedItem when the mouse hovers, or when the button is clicked. Or I need to figure out another way to get a reference to the CLR Object bound to the ListBoxItem that the button belongs to. The second option seems cleaner, but either way is probably OK.

Simplified code segment below:

XAML:

<DataTemplate x:Key='postBody'>     <Grid>         <TextBlock Text='{Binding Path=author}'/>         <Button Click='DeleteButton_Click'>Delete</Button>     </Grid> </DataTemplate>  <ListBox ItemTemplate='{StaticResource postBody}'/> 

C#:

private void DeleteButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     Console.WriteLine('Where mah ListBoxItem?'); } 

Answer 1

Generally speaking people will be interested in a CLR object directly bound to the ListBoxItem, not the actual ListBoxItem. If you had a list of posts for example you could use your existing template of:

<DataTemplate x:Key='postBody' TargetType='{x:Type Post}'>   <Grid>     <TextBlock Text='{Binding Path=author}'/>     <Button Click='DeleteButton_Click'>Delete</Button>   </Grid> </DataTemplate> <ListBox ItemTemplate='{StaticResource postBody}'    ItemSource='{Binding Posts}'/> 

and in your code-behind, your Button‘s DataContext is equal to your DataTemplate‘s DataContext. In this case a Post.

private void DeleteButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e){   var post = ((Button)sender).DataContext as Post;   if (post == null)     throw new InvalidOperationException('Invalid DataContext');    Console.WriteLine(post.author); }